


The Parent Trap (2019: Erejean Edition)

by go_Jean_or_go_home



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Parent Trap Fusion, F/M, M/M, The Parent Trap AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-04 08:57:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18340379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/go_Jean_or_go_home/pseuds/go_Jean_or_go_home
Summary: “This is so freaky…” Malika murmurs.Mireille takes initiative, crossing the room to stand in front of her look-alike. “I'll count to three, and on three, we'll both show our pictures, okay?”Malika nods. “Okay.”Mireille licks her lips, stalling for just a few more seconds, then counts. “One… two… three!”The two girls’ hands shoot out to reveal their photos—and they gasp.





	The Parent Trap (2019: Erejean Edition)

**Author's Note:**

> Because I wanted to and self care, bitch. The 1961 version > the 1998 version and you can suck my 24 inch cock if you say otherwise
> 
> Anyway, I have notes and notes and notes for this, and I got wayyy too invested in the plot, but here we are. It cuts off at the most I've written thus far, only a little over halfway done, but I completely and fully intend on finishing this, so leave as many comments as you like! There will be a lovely happy ending to this.

**July 1, 1962, Sunday, 8:03 AM**

A sleek, black automobile leisurely chugged down a grainy dirt road that ran alongside a wide, glimmering lake. Tiny fractures of light from the summer morning sun carved through the branches and leaves of surrounding trees, and bounced off of the shiny, reflective shell. A few other cars were behind and in front of the sleek black one on the road—although none were a model as new and expensive is it—where they all passed under a painted, wooden sign that read “WELCOME TO CAMP SPARROWHEAD FOR GIRLS!” in bright, bold letters.

As the precession of family cars drove further into the camp, various rustic cabins came into view on either side of the slowly widening road, with many clusters of teen girls and adults all over the grounds. Parents were scrambling everywhere—some seeing their daughters off to sort out paperwork, some helping carry suitcases, some having meager disputes with the counselors—while the camp leaders were trying to sort the clusters of chattering teenagers into groups based on surnames.

Ms. Abelló—a stout, plump, curly-haired woman in her early fifties—was one of said camp leaders trying to organize the chaos. “Let—letters U through… eh… letters U through W need to go over—over by Ms. Ceallachán! E through Hs are— _no_ , dearie, you’re over _there_ with the Q through Ts—”

The sleek black car from before pulled up alongside a few others, then the engine cut. From the driver’s door emerged a driver in dark uniform, who promptly rounded the vehicle to open the back door for the person inside.

“Ms. Kirschtein,” He nodded, as a young girl stepped out of the car with a yellow suitcase and looked about in curiosity.

Mireille Kirschtein had never exactly been one for camping or the outdoors before, and her father had always been _very_ vocal about his resentment of mosquitoes, but her grandmother had persuaded her father into sending her to this summer camp for a change of scenery, so here she was.

She looked out of place with her clean, new shoes and primped little outfit and hat, but she was going into this with a positive attitude, nonetheless. A bit of clean air wouldn't do her any harm.

“Here is your camera, ma’am.” The driver spoke, offering the device to her. “Your father requested you take lots of pictures.”

Mireille—who had been told time and time again of her _amazing_ resemblance to her father—was a tall, gangly thing of thirteen, with light brown eyes, shoulder-length tawny blonde hair, and sharp, piercing features that often made her look more intimidating than she actually was. She fumbled to swap her suitcase into her other hand and take the camera, flashing the driver a nervous smile. “Ah, yes. Thank you, Joseph.”

Joseph impassively nodded again. “He also asked me to remind you to apply sun lotion and insect repellant frequently, brush your teeth, take frequent showers, be polite but firm when necessary, no funny business with boys—”

Flushing in embarrassment, Mireille quickly shushed Joseph’s report, “Okay, okay! Joseph, _please_!”

The faintest hint of a smile curled at the corner of Joseph’s lips as Mireille frantically looked around to make sure no one heard that.

“...And finally, he said to send a letter any time, and have fun.”

Mireille sighed and smiled again, still gazing around at the people running around the camp in various stages of frenzy. “I will.”

Then, Joseph was back to business. “I’ll be back to pick you up on the twenty-fifth of August.”

And with that, the sleek, black 1961 Pontiac Tempest sped off, and thus was the beginning of Mireille’s summer.

**July 1, 1962, Sunday, 11:58 AM**

She’d been plopped into a cabin with two other girls. One was a lanky, darker-skinned girl with short, kinky hair named Kiara, and the other was a round brunette with equally round glasses named Robin. They were both nice, and the cabin that they’d be sharing was small, but not cramped. It was built to house three teenagers, and it certainly achieved that.

All three girls were now in the lunch line with the rest of the camp, and Mireille had to bite her tongue to keep from commenting on the low quality of the food, knowing that someone of her financial background was a minority here. Kiara was excitedly chattering about the candy she’d managed to sneak past her parents, while Robin gave her a triumphant high five. Mireille shook her head with a smile and went to grab a juice box when another hand latched onto the very same one she’d been reaching for. She looked up, ready to apologize and take another juice box, but _froze_.

Was… was she looking in a mirror?

The other girl who’d reached for the juice box stood with an expression of shock to match Mireille’s. The two girls were impossibly _identical_ . Light brown eyes and blonde hair and gangly limbs and sharp features—they were utterly and completely _identical_ . The only noticeable difference between them was the other girl’s hairstyle, which was cropped short and boyish and spiked up in certain areas, but that was _it_.

Just as Mireille opened her mouth to say something—anything, really—Robin cried, “Come _on_ , let’s _go_ , I’m _staaaarved_!”

Flushing a little, the girls broke eye contact and Mireille continued to the lunch table with her cabinmates, all the while taking glances over at the other girl, who did the same right back. Once at a table with three girls from another cabin, Kiara looked between Mireille and the other girl and asked with a frown, “Who is she?”

Mireille shrugged honestly, as both of her cabinmates looked across the room at the other girl again. “I’ve _never_ seen her before in my life!”

“ _Weeeeeird_!” Robin whispered.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the mess hall, the other girl was sitting with her own two cabinmates, who’d both seen her ‘doppelganger’.

“The nerve of her! Comin’ here with your face!” The tan, curly-haired one snarked through a rather large bite of food.

The red-headed one with freckles grinned tauntingly. “Whaddaya gonna do about it, Malika?”

Malika Jaeger turned back around in her chair, breaking yet another line of awkward eye contact between her and the look-alike stranger. “What am _I_ gonna do? What on Earth _can_ I do?”

“ _I’d_ bite off her nose.” Freckles joked. “Then she wouldn’t look like ya.”

Suddenly, the racketing jingle of a bell being shaken like a ragdoll rang out across the room, bringing attention to Ms. Abelló, the Head of Camp Sparrowhead. Once the room had more or less quieted down, Ms. Abelló smiled and placed the bell back on her stand, curling her stumpy fingers over the edge of it.

“Hello, ladies!” Her shrill voice rang out.

Her answer was a few murmurs and chewing.

“I’m Ms. Abelló and I’d like to humbly welcome you all to yet another _fine_ summer at Camp Sparrowhead for girls. This year—”

Ignoring the welcome speech, Mireille turned around in her chair to take a peek at her look-alike, still trying to wrap her head around such an impossible coincidence. Evidently, the other girl had done the same. Mireille furrowed her eyebrows at the girl, trying to silently ask if she had any idea how weird this was, but just then, the girl scowled and stuck her tongue out.

Mireille balked for a second, before huffing and sticking her chin up, turning back around. She was _much_ more mature than a _child_ like that.

“—we also have a lovely announcement to make! Mr. Williams, if you will.”

Mr. Williams, the head of the Bearpaw Camp for boys, stumbled up from his seat at the counselor’s lunch table and replaced Ms. Abelló at the podium. “Uh… hello girls…” He shuffled his feet as he looked over the sea of faces. “We… we—the uh—our two camps will be—we’ll be having a dance—”

Instantly, the previously silent room erupted into squeals as girls immediately started talking about dresses and boys and the dance—

“—a dance on Saturday! This—this Satur—Ms. Abelló, can you…?”

Ms. Abelló clapped her hands together harshly. “Quiet, girls!”

Mr. Williams nodded awkwardly. “Thank you… uh, yes! A dance this Satur—Saturday. How— however, both our camp leaders have—have, um, come to a decision of sorts…” He looked to Ms. Abelló nervously, who only gestured for him to go on. “The decision… the decision is that on Friday, both our—both our camps will check cabins for— for cleanliness and such.”

Ms. Abelló scuttled over and ushered Mr. Williams aside. “Precisely!” She squawked.

At her table, Malika rolled her eyes as her two new friends snickered quietly. Right off the bat, she could tell this stranger with her face was of the proper, prissy sort. The three of them were already plotting the kinds of pranks they could pull.

“So girls!” Ms. Abelló went on. “Keep your cabins tidy, and your uniforms fresh, and we’ll all have a lovely time this Saturday!”

 _‘Oh, we sure will…’_ Mireille and Malika both thought.

**July 2, 1962, Monday, 10:25 AM**

Malika and her two cabinmates were in a canoe, simply rowing and laughing along the lake, when curly-hair pointed out Mireille and her two friends sitting on one of the docks with their legs in the water, talking without a care in the world. Malika shared a sinister look with curly-hair and freckles, then the three rowed on over.

It was sunny, and campers were swimming in the shallow banks of the lake, splashing and screaming, while even more girls rowed on the lake in canoes or kayaks. When Malika and her friends were just a few strokes away, Kiara noticed and alerted her cabinmates, who slowly retracted their legs from the water.

Malika snottily taunted as they glided to a stop. “Well well, it's the _doppelganger_ and co.”

“Well well, it's _porcupine_ and friends.” Came Mireille’s immediate response, referring to Malika’s ridiculously spiky hair.

The girls in the canoe were taken aback for a moment but quickly recovered with barking laughs. “Good one, twinkle toes.” Malika snickered, not at all meaning that as a compliment. “Maybe if you give it more work, you might get close to _my_ level one day.”

“Thanks…” Mireille muttered, dreading every second she had to spend in her rude look-alike’s presence.

“But if you're really such a big fan of me and my insults, so much that you have to copy off the merchandise—” She gestured to herself. “—you should really work on that hair of _yours_!”

Mireille stuck her nose up with an indignant huff. “I'll do no such thing. I'd never ruin my hair to look like you. Only, ruining takes effort. You look like you got a trim in the dark— _oh!_ ”

She, Robin, and Kiara squealed as three paddles suddenly slapped down on the water's surface, splashing them all with cold lake water.

“Oh, you _wretches!_ ” Mireille shrieked, leaping to her feet despite the laughter emanating from the canoe. But Kiara had had enough.

“Let's see how _you_ like it!” And with that, she plunged her foot down on the side of the canoe, tipping it over in the blink of an eye while Malika and her friends cried out before getting dunked themselves.

“Serves you right!” Mireille yelled as their heads emerged from the water, stewing with rage. She, Kiara, and Robin picked up their towels and hurried off the docks.

“Oh, they'll pay for that…” Malika muttered lowly.

**July 7, 1962, Saturday, 9:49 PM**

Throughout the week, the petty spats and insults never ceased fire between the girls, but Mireille and Malika were the ringleaders of both their respective trios.

Where Malika was very obvious in her motives and loud in her emotions, Mireille was more cool and calculated. Where Mireille was rigid and strict in her pranking plans, Malika was fluid and flexible.

Malika’s reign of fire consisted of shampoo bottles being emptied and refilled with ketchup, frogs being placed on pillows, and pretending to be a bear with her cabinmates in the middle of the night outside Mireille’s cabin and terrifying the three of them until the morning, when Robin saw the “paw” prints and realized that they were fake and that their “bear” had been a hoax. That, and the incessant laughter from Malika’s cabin gave it away.

Mireille’s attack style was was more like “accidentally” mixing Malika’s red swimsuit with the white laundry so it turned pink, putting a full face of makeup on her when she fell asleep in one of the outdoor hammocks, and spilling honey and jam around their cabin overnight so swarms of bees and wasps completely surrounded them the next morning. It had taken the counselors all afternoon to ward them off before Malika or either of her friends dared step outside.

So far, the two of them had gotten warnings (when caught), but it didn't do much to deter the girls. This was a _war_ , and neither cabin was willing to lose. Each prank had its own personal strategy and technique that said something about the executioner, and quite honestly, each newly discovered difference between Mireille and Malika made them both happier and happier each time, for it solidified in themselves that _yes_ , they truly were two completely different people with no chance of them being related in _any_ way,  whatsoever.

 _‘After all, who'd want to be related to that?’_ They both thought about the other.

And now, it was finally the end of the first week of camp, on Saturday. The dance between camp Sparrowhead and camp Bearpaw was in full swing, with music playing, teens dancing, counselors watching over everyone to keep order, and several tables set up with punch, juice, water, pop, cakes, vegetable platters, and other snacks.

Mireille and Malika were shooting nasty glares at each other from across the room. Both of their cabinmates were off dancing with boys in the sea of teens, and they were among the few who either weren't asked to dance or didn't want to. Mireille wanted to dance with a boy, but her terrifying staring contest across the room was warding off boys too nervous to interrupt her. Malika just didn't want to be in this damned _dress_.

Tired of this, Mireille broke their angry eye contact and went to get a drink. If she really wanted to enjoy herself, she'd need to get her mind off immature brats like Malika.

Mireille was wearing a pretty, soft pink dress with a white bow in the back, and pink slip-ons to match. She always took good care of herself, but she'd done a little extra and had asked to borrow a little bit of Kiara’s perfume, which she'd never tried before. She felt nice, but the night's events, or lack thereof, were wearing her nerves thin.

“Ahem… uh, excuse m—”

“ _Ah!_ ” Mireille jumped a little in surprise, whipping around to find a boy around her height staring back at her, looking a little pink-cheeked.

“Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to scare yo—”

“No, no, it's fine! I just—”

“My name is—”

“I'm Mire—”

They both went quiet, and looked away, trying to gather themselves. Being thirteen, Mireille had never done anything in terms of romance aside from little crushes here and there. Her father was rather strict about that sort of thing and always ended up critiquing the boys she crushed on into the ground, tearing at every flaw he could find until Mireille couldn't look at them the same. Mireille loved her father, she really did, but even she knew he was overprotective. She sometimes wondered if he was like that because he never found himself a woman after her presumed mother disappeared, but she'd never _ever_ tell that to his face.

However, right now, her father wasn't there to point out every little imperfection in this boy until she couldn't stand it, so she allowed herself to look him over. He seemed to be around thirteen too, and was about her height, but he had black hair, dark, slanted eyes, a round face, and a navy blue suit. He was nice-looking.

“My name’s Mireille.” She introduced herself.

He smiled. “Mireille, would you like to dance?”

“Why, certainly.” She had to bite back the glee surging up inside her. Glee, from a boy wanting to dance with her, from defying her father’s orders, and from a break from Malika, _finally_. With that, she and the boy disappeared into the crowd on the dance floor and began to sway and move. They spun around and laughed for who-knows-how-long, and before long, the song ended, and Mireille realized she was parched. Who knew dancing was such a workout?

She excused herself from the boy in search of the punch bowl, and locating it on a table against a wall, she grabbed a cup and went to scoop herself some punch when another, identical hand grabbed the ladle first.

“Oh, for _crying out loud—_ ” Mireille looked up, already expecting Malika’s face frowning back at her. “Can't you give it a rest for _one_ night?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.” Malika sassed, laddling herself a cup of punch. “I'm just getting a drink.”

Malika was wearing a dark green dress with white polka dots and saddle shoes. Aside from that, she looked roughly the same.

Mireille crossed her thin arms over her chest. “Sure, like you're _not_ about to try something. I know you by now.”

“Oh, _do_ you?” Malika sniffed, bringing her cup to her lips to take a sip, glaring over the rim of it. Mireille went to serve herself some.

“Yes.” She snarked. “I know you've been watching me dance the whole time because you're so jealous you can't get a boy to— _GAH!!_ ”

Malika had thrust her cup out, throwing its contents across the table where it _splashed_ all over Mireille, drenching her hair and dress and replacing the nice, floral scent of Kiara’s perfume with that of sugary, fruity punch.

“I'm _not_ jealous!” Malika seethed. “I don't give a _shit_ about boys or dancing! I don't even want to _be_ here if it means spending one more second with _you_ —”

Screaming in rage, Mireille leaped over the table and snatched at Malika, and the two tumbled to the ground, grabbing each other’s hair, clawing wildly, and wrestling on the floor violently, both yelling out obscenities. Immediately, all the people around them yelled out and backed away from the two brawling girls, quickly alerting everyone else in the dance hall as to what was going on. Teens from both camps started chanting the name of whomever they were rooting for, boys and girls hooting and hollering excitedly while the girls were too blinded by fury to hear anything.  

Ms. Abelló and Mr. Williams rushed over, being trailed by several other counselors, and fruitlessly tried to break the two up, shouting all the while. A leg kicked out, someone tripped, and suddenly a table had been knocked over, sending everything on it careening down like a slippery slide. The punch bowl splattered all over the floor, cakes got flung into the air, teens started running in a frenzy, and finally, in a fit of fury, Ms. Abelló tore the two girls apart, now covered in an array of food.

“You'd better start praying for your _lives_ when your parents hear of this!” She roared.

**July 8, 1962, Monday, 7:31 AM**

The morning after their outburst, Ms. Abelló had collected herself, two counselors, and Mireille and Malika in the office to discuss proper punishment for the utterly disgraceful, most revolting, most _disgusting_ act of hooliganism their camp had ever seen. The two girls stood in front of Ms. Abelló at her desk, supported by the two other counselors at her sides. Neither girl dared to even look at the other out of raw spite, but both corrected Ms. Abelló in the middle of her little lecture, when she stated she'd call their parents.

“I have one parent, ma’am.” Mireille interjected, face blank.

“Me too.” Malika added.

Ms. Abelló’s eyebrows shot up for half a second before her expression was schooled again. “Divorced parents, I see. I apologize. But even still, _sisters_ should never devolve to such—”

At the word ‘sisters’, both girls’ gazes snapped forward. “ _Sisters!?_ We’re _not_ sisters!” Malika shrieked.

“I've never seen her before in my _life!_ ” Mireille cried in disgust.

Ms. Abelló stumbled to find her words for a moment, looking between the two impossibly identical girls. “You are!” She turned to the counselors beside her and asked, “Aren't they?”

“No, ma’am.” Replied one, flipping through a thick binder of papers. “Just look-alikes.”

Ms. Abelló settled her elbows on the table before her, folding her stumpy fingers and peering at the two in awe, who were again looking anywhere but at each other defiantly. “An _amazing_ resemblance… are you _sure_ they aren't children of divorced parents?”

The counselor flipping through papers answered once again. “Not likely. Says right here: Malika Jaeger… daughter of Eren Jaeger, located in San Francisco, California, and…” She flipped to the next letter. “Mireille Kirschtein… daughter of Jean Kirschtein, located in Boston, Massachusetts. Different last names, from completely different sides of the country, and both with single fathers. Definitely _not_ divorced parents, just a one-in-a-million coincidence, ma’am.”

Hearing all this information about the other was new to the girls. The only thing they previously knew about the other was names, cabin numbers, and that was that. Once again, both felt surges of smugness at the knowledge that it was even more unlikely than before that they had anything in common.

Ms. Abelló hummed, as her accomplice closed her binder. She spoke slowly, “I say we alert both their fathers of their behavior, and what our punishment for it will be.”

The other counselor inquired, “And what would that be, ma’am?”

Ms. Abelló got to her feet with a grunt, before striding over to stand in front of the girls. “How do _you_ think you should be punished?” She asked them, enjoying their squirming.

Malika shrugged indignantly, while Mireille quietly responded, “I don't know, ma’am.”

A beat, then Ms. Abelló opened her mouth once more. “I have run this camp for twenty-five years on this motto: “let the punishment fit the crime.” Does that line sound familiar to either of you?”

Again, Malika shook her head silently, while Mireille nodded, “Yes, ma’am.”

Ms. Abelló turned around to shoot her two ladies a smug look, which was mirrored right back.

“Well, that is what I base _all_ my punishments on. So, as the line goes, let the punishment fit the crime.”

**July 15, 1962, Sunday, 3:15 PM**

They'd been plucked from both their previous cabins and placed in a special, little, secluded one a short walk away from the main cabin grounds. This was to be their cabin until the end of the summer, so as Ms. Abelló said: “You girls had better learn to get along, or you'll punish each other _far_ better than _I_ ever could.”

It has been a week since their initial placement in the cabin, a week full of icy glares, hostile silence, and isolating themselves to their respective sides of the cabin. Now, it was the afternoon, and it was raining rather heavily outside, so all the camp was forced indoors until further notice. Thunder clapped and boomed outside, raindrops pattered against the roof, water dripped into the little pot set up on the floor underneath the leaky spot, and nothing but gray fog and barren campgrounds lay outside their windows.

Mireille was on her stomach with her ankles crossed in the air, reading a book on her bed and pointedly not looking at the cabin’s second occupant. Malika was also reading on her own bed, sprawled across the rumpled blanket and sheet on her back, although, instead of a proper book, she was reading some sort of comic with ‘AMAZING FANTASY’ written on the top of the cover page, which featured a ‘newly introduced’ superhero by the name of ‘Spider-Man’.

Mireille had never read a comic book before. She knew they weren’t exclusively for boys, but the things had never really interested her. Now, she couldn’t help but take little, curious ganders over the top of her book at Malika’s comic, just a tad inquisitive for once.

Against all better judgment, she took a little breath, and broke the quiet, “Who is ‘Spider-Man’?”

Malika blinked, coming back out of the world of her comic. “Oh, uh…” She closed it, keeping her thumb inside to mark her page, and turned it so she could look at the cover. “He’s this new hero; his real name is Peter Parker, and he started out as this shy, kind of pushover nerd—”

Mireille made a face.

“—but he got bitten by this radioactive spider, and basically he got the spider’s super speed, super strength, and super climbing ability.”

Yeah, didn’t sound too appealing to Mireille, but interesting nonetheless. She mumbled out something generic to be polite.  “...Huh. Cool.”

“He’s about to wrestle Crusher Hogan.” Malika continued nonchalantly, opening back up her comic book.

They lapsed back into silence, so Mireille awkwardly returned her focus to her book. A few minutes ticked by, with rain and a few claps of thunder, before Malika courageously stepped up to break the quiet next.

“How ‘bout your book? What’s it about?” She asked, and Mireille had an inkling that Malika, too, couldn’t care less about the contents of her book, but was also trying to make peaceful conversation.

Mireille mirrored Malika’s previous actions and closed her book, showing her look-alike the cover. “It’s called ‘A Wrinkle In Time.’ It’s about this girl Meg, and her brother Charles who travel through space and time with these three witches to save their father on another planet—”

Malika suddenly jumped to sit up on her bed, excitedly intrigued about the book. “That sounds _wicked!_ Where’d you get it?”

Mireille stumbled a little over her words, surprised to have such eagerness from Malika in a positive way for the first time. “O—oh… um… I got it from my father as a New Year’s present… it actually came out right on January 1st, so he got one of the first copies.”

Malika let out a long whistle. “I’m gonna hafta ask baba to get it for my birthday.”

Tucking her bookmark into the pages, Mireille closed ‘A Wrinkle In Time’ and placed it on her bedside table, then swung her legs over the edge of her bed and sat up. “When’s your birthday?”

“Ooh, it’s coming up!” Malika sang, waving her comic around as an extension of talking with her hands. “I’m gonna be fourteen in October!”

Hearing that, Mireille paused a moment, stunned, before slowly, hesitantly asking, “... October thirteenth?”

“How’d you know?” Malika gave her a look of impressed shock, finally putting down her comic on her own bedside table, which is precariously stacked high with… things.

“Well, that's _my_ birthday too…” Mireille revealed, already feeling the goosebumps emerging on her arms.

“That’s so _strange_ …” Malika nearly whispered, awe-struck.

Mireille agreed. Part of why they’d gotten so caught up in messing with each other was because they were so eager, so _desperate_ to find any differences between them as ‘proof’ of sorts that they had nothing in common. But ultimately, there was a lot, _a lot_ of similarities. Same looks, same age, same single-parent situation, same single- _father_ situation, and now same birthdays. It was starting to be _comical_.

“I wonder…” Malika hummed, before blurting out the first question that came to mind. “Do you speak another language?”

Mireille beamed proudly at this. “My father taught me French. I’m _completely_ fluent.”

“Ooh, French is so _romantic!_ ” Malika gushed, now sitting at the edge of her bed as well, kicking her heels against the floor. “My baba has taught me Turkish ever since I can remember! ‘S why I call him ‘baba’, means ‘dad’ in Turkish.”

“Oh, how interesting!” Mireille exclaimed while Malika muttered, _“Well, it means ‘father’ technically, but same thing…”_ under her breath. Mireille asked, “Are you Turkish?”, still a little bit hopeful to find more things to set them apart.

Malika shook her head. “Naw, I'm adopted. But my baba is Turkish, though. Are you adopted?”

“No, not adopted. People comment on my resemblance to my father _all_ the time.” Mireille groaned exaggeratedly.

Malika hummed thoughtfully for a moment or two before speaking again. “What about your mother? Do you know if you look like her? I mean, before your folks split.”

“Oh, I wouldn't know.” Mireille frowned, turning her head to stare out a window at the gray, foggy woods being drenched by the downpour, leaves and pine needles shiny and wet. A few little birds could be seen within the fortress of branches on one tree, shaking and fluffing themselves up to fling off the water. “I’ve never met her, and father’s never said much of anything about her. The few times I _did_ ask about her, he got this sort of… oh, I don’t know…” She trailed off, eyes fixated on the little birds.

“No, go on.” Malika ushered in a whisper.

So Mireille did, licking her lips first. “... this sad, faraway look in his eyes. The most I ever got out of him was that she had brown hair and green eyes— _nothing_ like me. Then the last time I ever brought her up, he asked me to stop talking about her. I was eight, so I didn’t really understand, and honestly, I _still_ don’t, but he just looked so… so _heartbroken_ and sorry, so I’ve never mentioned her again.”

Malika was quiet for a moment, and the pitter-patter of rainfall filled in the silence for them.

“I still don’t know her name, or if she left or died or if they got divorced or _what_ , but I do know it hurts him to think about it, so I’ve sort of… I’ve come to realize that I don’t even _need_ to know all that. She’s not part of my life, so why bother caring? After all, my father is the one who raised me, so he's the one I love.”

She was looking at Malika again, for validation now, and curiously, the other girl looked a little paler than usual as she murmured, “That's so strange… I… I have the same exact story…”

Mireille felt her eyes widen a little. “Everything?”

“Well…” Malika rubbed the back of her neck. “I never knew my mother either, and any time I asked my dad about her, he always reacted badly, too. But more… ah— _angry_ , I’d say."

Mireille was staring at the floor now, contemplating, as Malika stuttered some more.

“Or, or, actually, not _angry_ per se, but like… a more _snappy_ heartbroken. Cross.” Malika abruptly looked Mireille dead in the eye. “But, you said your mother had brown hair and green eyes, right?”

Mireille nodded.

“Did your father ever—I don't know… did he ever, sort of, _stutter_ when saying ‘she’?”

Mireille squinted, unsure if Malika was implying her mother wasn’t a ‘she’. She searched her memory, but came up with nothing. “If he did, I don't remember.” She finally answered. “But what—”

“ _My_ baba has brown hair and green eyes.”

Mireille stilled for a minute, before shaking her head, brushing off _that_ notion with a nervous laugh. “That’s probably just a coinci—”

“You said people comment on your _amazing resemblance_ to your father all the time. Baba once told me I looked like the _spitting image_ of my mother.”

Yet again, silence overcame their cabin like a blanket.

“ _I_ look like the spitting image of _you_ , and _you_ look like the spitting image of _your father_.”

They’re both thinking the same thing, they’re both fully aware of how hysterically coincidental it is that their family backgrounds sync up so perfectly, how they look like carbon copies of one another, and how they share the same birthday. All the puzzle pieces fit into place, but it's just too jarring a revelation, too fast, too soon. They need to let it sink in and make sure, first.

Mireille swallows down the lump that's formed in her throat, and tentatively looks at Malika. “I have… I have a picture—or, or _part_ of a picture. It's of my father.”

Malika nods, slowly catching on. “I have one too—of baba. It's been ripped in half, but that's how I found it—”

The wide-eyed look Mireille gives her tells her that it's the _exact same_ for Mireille’s picture. Instantly, they both scramble to their feet to dig out their respective pictures. When they eventually turn around to face each other again, they're both holding their picture half face-down against their chests—and fall still.

Thunder _cracks_ outside, the wind howls against their cabin walls, and yet, the quiet sing-song of the birds manages to seep through all that noise.

“This is _so_ freaky…” Malika murmurs.

Mireille takes initiative, crossing the room to stand in front of her look-alike. “I'll count to three, and on three, we'll both show our pictures, okay?”

Malika nods. “Okay.”

Mireille licks her lips, stalling for just a few more seconds, then counts. “One… two… three!”

The two girls’ hands shoot out to reveal their photos—and they gasp.

The tears in each photo half line up _perfectly_ , and they bring the whole image closer to examine it better. It's black and white, and contains two men—Mireille’s father and Malika’s baba—standing next to one another in suits at what seems to be some sort of party, grinning at each other with their chests facing the photographer but heads tilted towards the other. The tear goes right through where their sides are pressed against each other, separating them. And at the bottom of the image, “August, 1945, celebrating end of WWII” is scrawled in somebody’s cursive handwriting (Mireille recognizes it, and Malika doesn't, so it must be Mr. Kirschtein’s).

Malika stares at the man standing next to her baba. She’s never seen him before, but he indeed looks unmistakably like his daughter, like _her_. He’s got their sharp face and nose and eyes, their tawny blond hair (although, his is an undercut with his darker roots showing on the shaved part) and light brown eyes and long, gangly limbs. His a little bit taller than her baba, definitely thinner, and much paler, but looks dashing all the same.

Mireille looks curiously at Malika’s baba, who stands strong and sturdy next to her father. He does, in fact, have brown hair and green eyes. Shaggy brown hair, which doesn't look like it had experienced much of any taming before whatever party they're at, and his eyes— _oh_ —they are probably the most striking thing about him, she assesses. They're a brilliant tone of ocean green, which starkly contrast his cinnamon skin in the loveliest of ways. He's a few inches shorter than her father, but just a few, and appears more defined in terms of musculature, shoulders more broad and filling out his suit.

Both wear matching cat-that-caught-the-canary grins.

“Oh my god…” Malika whispers, and Mireille scours the picture to find what has additionally earned such a reaction. She takes both halves to peer even closer at their respective fathers, and _yes_ . Right where their fathers’ suit jackets end, where their arms are nearly hidden by their bodies, but not quite hidden enough, their fathers are _undeniably_ holding hands. Their grins mean something different now, something the slightest bit more intimate.

“...They were lovers.” Mireille breathes, realization hitting her like a brick. “Whenever either of us asked about our mothers, they were only describing each other…”

Once again, their cabin goes quiet, and the rain appears to have slowed to a more gentle shower, with the lightning and thunder having finished their tantrum. The birds sing merrily without a care in the world.

Malika clears her throat. “So… so then, I look like _your_ father because… ”

She doesn’t finish her sentence, but the meaning and her wonder is not lost. Mireille stares at the black and white picture halves in their hands, and slowly takes a stab at an explanation. Malika isn't denying their fathers’ likelihood of being lovers, after all.

“I'm guessing… I'm guessing they—they must’ve wanted children, so _my_ father—or probably _our_ father—”

Malika lets out a long stream of air.

“—Went out to do it with your father’s consent, or maybe they were both trying? Anyway, it happened, and then we were born, but—but then something probably occurred that forced them to split!”

She looks up at Malika now, growing more excited the more she pieces it together in her mind. “But your baba’s never found anyone else, has he?”

Malika shakes her head, stunned to silence.

“And neither has _my_ father—so really, secretly, in their heart of hearts, they must _still_ be in love with each other!”

Malika looks up at her now, and their eyes meet. She licks her lips, then in a shaky voice, “So… so we’re like… _sisters…”_

Delighted, positively _terrified_ smiles form on both girls’ faces, as Mireille cries, “Malika, we're like _twins!_ ”

There’s a split second of hesitation, before the two girls—the two _twins_ —leap into each other’s arms, mirthful laughter bubbling out of them. What this means, is that both their little families just got a little bit bigger, as they both realize that not only have they each gained a twin sister, but a second father at that. They’re a _family_ , the four of them. A split family, but a family all the same. Suddenly, Malika stops laughing and pushes away from her sister, looking very serious.

“I have an idea!” She exclaims. “ _You_ want to meet baba, right?”

Mireille nods, and gives her a look that says ‘obviously’. Malika continues, “And _I_ want to meet father… and _oh,_ it's so risky, but we might pull it off—”

“Pull what off?” Mireille cries.

Malika grins, all boyish again, and _there’s_ the Malika she’s used to. “Switch places!”

And so, they do.

**August 25, 1962, Saturday, 9:02 AM**

They’d gone over every little detail they could think of in order to make sure this operation went smoothly. They’d made each other flow charts and maps and pages and pages of notes on how to seamlessly blend in and pretend to be the other, how to talk and act and dress like the other. Malika cut Mireille’s hair to match her spiky do, and Mireille tried her hardest to at least smooth down her sister’s spikes. And amidst all their excited chattering about their respective lives, had discovered that both their parents were quite wealthy, with well-paying jobs and nice houses and cars. Hell, Mireille had arrived on the first day of camp with a _chauffeur_ , and Malika had been _flown_ over!

Mireille had to teach Malika how to navigate the lovely New England house she, her (their) father, and his mother lived in. She told Malika of their father’s mother, or their grandmother, how she was a kind, plump, elderly woman who found solace in spending her latter years with her son and grandchild, but didn’t hesitate to teasingly bully her son and goof around with Mireille. She told Malika of the private flute lessons she took daily, and how she’d have to try and learn enough to fake it. She told her about her favorite food and song and book and Malika did the same right back.

Malika taught Mireille about the California spanish-style house she, her (their) baba, and her aunt Mikasa and uncle Armin occupied. Of the hiking and sailing trips she went on with her father, or with Mikasa and (begrudgingly) Armin when he wasn’t available. Of how Mikasa, their baba’s adopted sister, was a strong, intimidatingly silent woman at first glance, but a rather kind, and humorful person when you got past her first layer. How she and her husband Armin, a sweet, baby-faced man with professor’s spectacles and a shoulder-length blond ponytail, had been like bonus parents to her ever since she could remember. Mireille didn’t know a thing about hiking or sailing or the general great outdoors, so like with Malika and the flute, she’d just have to wing it.

But mostly, they told each other about their dads.

“Father is good friends with the Springers, our neighbors.” Mireille had told Malika one day during lunch at their ‘isolation table’. “He pretends not to like them, but he lets them keep him company nearly every day of the week, so we all know how he really feels. They’ve all been friends since high school, apparently.”

Malika had chuckled through a bite of hot dog, and opened her mouth to ask a question, but didn’t get out a word as Mireille grimaced at the sight of hot dog mush and ordered she close her mouth. “If you do _that_ , you'll give us away immediately.”

Malika had glared and mockingly repeated ‘you'll give us away immediately’ around her mouthful, but had swallowed and promised to stop. Frowning, Mireille had pushed further, swearing to have good table manners hammered into her sister by the end of the week. She somewhat succeeded.

On the flip side, while Mireille had to teach Malika to be more “goody-two-shoes” as Malika put it, Malika had to get Mireille to be more boyish and rough.

“I know where baba keeps his liquor.” Malika had informed her braggingly, just one week after the hot dog incident. “He only drinks on the weekend, because I'm only allowed soda on the weekends and it's only fair, but what he doesn't know is I go in there when nobody’s in the house and try some of his stuff. It tastes real gross, but it feels fun!”

“ _Malika_ !” Mireille had shrieked at her, ignoring the tetherball swinging past her and securing Malika another win. “That's bad! What if you become an _alcoholic_!?”

“ _Shhh!_ ” Malika had sushed amongst a storm of snickers. “I won’t! I’m hardly ever left completely alone in the house anyway! It’s like a holiday when it happens!”

She’d cackled some more as Mireille hurled the tetherball at her head, which sailed well wide of its target. “If it happens so rarely that nobody notices, then I’m not doing it!”

Malika had waved her hands, giggles still bubbling out of her. “Okay, okay, that’s fair.”

Now, it was the very last day of camp, and the whole grounds were the mirror image of the chaos that it was the first day. Girls and counselors and parents running this way and that, cars coming and going faster than on the freeway, and general noise and rush and confusion were everywhere to be seen. It was lovely.

Malika and Mireille, in each other’s clothes and holding each other’s luggage, were standing next to one of the many trees along the dirt road the cars came in on, quickly going over some last-minute details before Mireille’s (now Malika’s) chauffeur, Joseph, arrived in their father’s black 1961 Pontiac Tempest.

Mireille, in Malika’s jeans and shirt, was yammering away, “—and remember, where is my—where is _your_ room?”

“Upstairs, second door on the left.” Malika reported. “Where is _you_ r room?”

“Upstairs, straight down the hallway, turn right.” Mireille grinned.

They both nodded, just as a tell-tale sleek, expensive-looking black car caroused into the campgrounds.

They hugged and whispered each other good luck, quickly swapped phone numbers on slips of paper. Then, Malika scurried down to the car, where Joseph gave her short hair a long look.

“What’ve you done to your hair?” He asked as he took Malika’s (Mireille’s) yellow suitcase from her and tucked it into the trunk.

Malika ducked down into the back seat. “Oh, I cut it. ‘Was too hot long.”

Joseph said nothing, and spared it one more look before marching around to the driver’s seat. As the engine sputtered to life, and Joseph began pulling out of Camp Sparrowhead, Malika rolled down her window to stick her arm out and wave at Mireille.

**August 25, 1962, Saturday, 2:02 PM**

Several hours later found Malika standing outside of what would now be her temporary new home. It was a lovely New England style house, with the early afternoon sun casting a merry glow onto the white shingles and glinting off of glass windows. As Joseph opened the door for her (that would take some getting used to), she muttered under her breath, “Here goes nothin’...” to another odd look from the chauffeur, and went inside.

Upon entering, she immediately noticed the wide, open foyer had a staircase going up on one wall, and curved into a sort of indoor balcony for the second floor hallway. There were a few doorways in the cozy entrance, all open. There was one on within the wall opposite the staircase, one below the staircase, and one directly across from the front door. Joseph closed the door behind himself and strolled over. “Your grandmother is having coffee in the den, and Mr. Kirschtein should be upstairs in his office.”

Feeling stiff, awkward, and utterly at a loss for words, Malika nodded and inadvertently dismissed Joseph. He disappeared into the doorway underneath the staircase, leaving Malika to quickly rip out the map Mireille had drawn for her, nerves shaking at the sheer proximity she was in to the other side of her family. The den was in the doorway across from the stairs.

She scampered over to peer in, and _there_ was her grandmother. Just as Mireille said, she was a round, rosy-cheeked woman with gray hair pulled into a low ponytail as she sat on one of the floral couches with her coffee cup and a book. At the sound of Malika’s shoes against the wooden floor, she looked up, and as her expression lit up and she rose to her feet, Malika found herself comparing her grandmother’s look of excitement to that of a puppy.

“Mireille! You’re home!”

_‘Oh, right.’_

Malika stumbled as she was suddenly encased in a strong, warm hug, yet she couldn’t help but laugh at the overt show of affection, and hugged her grandmother back. For once in her life, she couldn’t think of anything to say, but evidently, her grandmother was going to do all the talking for her, as the woman was already spilling into a spiel of chatter as she pulled away.

“I say, all that sunshine did you some good, hm? You need to tell me and your father _all_ about—what happened to your _hair?_ ”

_‘Oh, riiiiiight.’_

“I uh—I cut it! It was too hot long.” Malika stumbled, quickly trying to regain control over her the nerves swirling in her gut. Hopefully, she asked, “Do you like it?”

For a minute, her stomach dropped as her grandmother’s face scrunched up, giving her hair a long, squinty-eyed stare. But then, her grandmother broke out in a peal of laughter, and roughly pinched her cheek as all grandmothers do. “Oh you should’ve seen your face, haha! I love it, it’s about time for some change in this rigid house.”

Malika couldn’t help but grin; her grandmother’s bubbliness was infectious.

“Speaking of, I’ll call down your father. _Jeanbo!_ ” Ms. Kirschtein called, bringing Malika and herself back out into the foyer. Malika followed her grandmother’s stare and peered up at the second floor balcony. “Jeanbo! Mireille is here!”

Silence, then a few thumps, some creaks of wooden floorboards and a skid of a chair, and suddenly, a figure comes rounding the left hallway of the second floor and— _there_ is her father, standing at the little indoor balcony overlooking the foyer, one hand resting gently on the smooth, dark railing and the other adjusting his skewed glasses as he blinks down at Malika and her grandmother. An easy grin reveals his affection for someone Malika is not, but it’s such a warm, tender look that she can’t help but feel like it’s a look meant for her. A smooth, silvery voice travels down, “Welcome home, mon chou.”

Malika is silent, struck at a loss for words. She’d only just discovered this man’s existence a few weeks ago, and now here he is, real and sound and looking like he’d leapt up from some sort of work to welcome her back. He looks older than in the picture half Mireille had, with some gray hairs peppering the darker, shaved parts of his undercut and some more white strands in the blond mop. There aren’t many noticeable wrinkles, but maybe a few at the eyes and in between the eyebrows. From frowning a lot, maybe. Still, he looked relatively young and good, if a bit tired. Malika remembers she and Mireille, while sharing as many stories as possible,  figuring out that both their parents were about twenty-seven in the picture, having both been born in 1919. So that would now make him… forty-three. He’s still tall and slender, and the glasses are an addition from the father in the picture, she observes.

Malika only realizes that they’re waiting for a response from her when Mr. Kir—her _father_ clears his throat and ascends down the stairs with a, “So how was it? I know it might’ve seemed strange, I never was much of an outdoor person myself. I hope it wasn’t— _oh_ my…”

He trails off, having come near enough to stand next to her and his mother, and Malika knows his reaction is because of the hair. She gulps quietly, staring up at him, and her grandmother speaks for her. “She cut it! She says it was too hot long—I can only _imagine_! I quite like it! What do you think, Jeanbo?”

Jeanbo. Malika remembers their father’s first name is Jean, and Jeanbo was their grandmother’s playful little nickname for him from his childhood.

‘Jeanbo’ casts a mildly resentful look to his mother, who Malika assumes is giving him a stern look over her shoulder, before he reaches out a hand to smooth down some of her cowlicks. The first contact feels nice, and Malika really, really hopes she’ll be able to hug her father.

Humming, her father’s smile returns. “I like it too. Reminds me of the ‘20s.”

Malika lets out a breath of air, and her father chuckles, before pulling her into a hug, _yes_ , with a, “Come ‘ere.”

Malika instantly latches her arms around her father, and can’t help but take a deep inhale to try and remember this moment. Her father is warm, firm, and smells of… of a cocktail of crisp, fragrant skin and hair products, really. But there’s a touch of something bready and homey. His bell-like laughter breaks her out of her moment, and he pries himself away from her to exclaim, “You’re so huggable all of a sudden! What’s happened to you? It’s like you’ve become a different person!”

Momentarily, Malika balks and panics, thinking he’d figured it out, but she realizes he’s still grinning all light-hearted in good humor. He’s only joking, only joking. But her look of shock doesn’t go unnoticed, and that grin slowly turns into a frown. “What’s wrong, mon chou?”

She shakes her head, and leans back into their hug, which he accepts. “Nothing, father. I just missed you ‘s all.”

“Oh, I can only imagine! It’s the longest you’ve ever been away from us: a whole eight weeks!”

Malika lets herself close her eyes for the moment. “Feels like so much longer…”

**August 25, 1962, Saturday, 5:02 PM**

Mireille’s plane had landed in San Francisco only a few minutes ago, and she’d just stepped off the stairs with her (Malika’s) luggage when she’d heard a voice akin to a foghorn, orotund and raucous.

“Malika!”

Good lord, she’d only been in unfamiliar territory for five minutes and already the game was starting. The dry, warm wind rushed around her, ruffling her now short hair and pants as she looked around for the source of the voice.

“Malika! There ya are!”

From the crowd of families and friends greeting the other passengers on her flight emerged a head of wild, dark brown hair and striking green eyes, with a toothy, playful grin and— _oh_ . It was baba, already, so fast, she swear she felt winded. It was her _baba_!

He jogged over through the crowd, grin gleaming and hair shining in the sunlight. Mireille noted he looked older than in the picture Malika had shown, with silvery strands interwoven into the deep brown of his hair, and even a few in his eyebrows, she noticed as he got nearer. A few wrinkles were starting to appear, from frowning and laughing, but honestly none of it mattered even a bit because he was _here_ and pulling her into the warmest, most firm, sturdy, bear-like hug Mireille had ever had.

“Hey, yavrum!”

_‘He calls me ‘yavrum’.’ Malika had explained. ‘It means ‘my baby.’_

“Baba!” Mireille cries into her dad’s shoulder, into the crisp, light fabric of his shirt. One second she was hyping herself up for this moment, and the next, it's actually _happening_. She buries her nose into the green cotton, inhaling campfire and some sort of fancy aftershave. Her baba’s grip around her is gentle but strong, and when he pulls away to ruffle her hair into an unkempt mess while she whines and bats his arms away, it feels like the most natural thing in the world.

“I missed you, yavrum. Did you have fun at camp?” Her baba asks, moving to pick up her (Malika’s) luggage like it doesn't weigh a thing. He starts walking, his stride sure and confident, and Mireille scurries behind him. She's still feeling winded from how _fast_ this is all moving, but finds she wouldn't stop it if she could.

“Oh, it was lovely!”

“‘Lovely’?” Her baba parrots with a teasing tone, and Mireille is confused as to why, until her lively baba chuckles, “Well that's a damn proper word coming outta you! Did you hang out with some British folk for eight weeks?”

Mireille searches for something more ‘Malika-like’ to say. “It was totally wicked?”

“Now _that's_ more like the Malika I know!” Comes the innocently playful tone of her baba as he hoists her suitcase into the backseat of a sleek, expensive looking car with an open hood. Mireille is momentarily struck wondering as to where the chauffeur wandered off to, when her baba opens the passenger door with an exaggerated, “M’lady, o so proper.”

She gets in with a laugh, reminding herself that he's only playing, and isn't in any way attuned to the little plot underfoot.

Her baba closes her door, rounds the car to his own seat, adjusts the rear-view mirror, and with that, they sped off.

**August 30, 1962, Saturday, 12:07 PM**

“Father?” Malika asks, after several days of settling into her new life. She’s still not quite used to being in her sister’s clothes. Not because they don’t fit—they _do_ —but because of how… _girly_ they are. Skirts and dresses had never really been her thing, and the only reason she was wearing a navy pleated skirt right now was to not blow her and Mireille’s cover.

Still, her heart would always belong to pants. Baba had always encouraged that in her, then again, baba was much more laid back than her biological father proved to be. She didn’t love him any less for it, though.

Mr. Kirschtein, standing in front of a tall mirror and carefully, meticulously fastening a tie around his neck, turns his head but not his eyes from their focus as he responds, “Oui, mon chou?”

Malika had improv’d her way out of a few daily flute lessons, but knew her sudden drop in skill wasn’t going unnoticed. She played it off as a lack of practice during her time at camp. A believable fib, really, so she was off the hook for now.

She meanders over to his plush queen bed and seats herself over the covers, momentarily reveling in how she sinks into them. “Ah… I was just thinking—”

“Oh, my dear, of all times, now? I have to be at that conference shortly—”

“It’ll be quick! I promise!” Malika cries, a desperate edge tanging her voice.

Her father turns his head to the wall-clock and sighs quietly, before swiftly turning around and coming to sit next to his daughter. He isn’t wearing his glasses, and there’s just the tiniest bit of makeup powdered on his cheeks and eyes. He looks crisp and dashing, Malika thinks. Normally, suits are cut with wide shoulders and meager hips in mind, but her father’s suits drape across his tall, elegantly slender frame in a way that makes her wonder of they are custom-tailored to fit his build. Probably are.

“Mon chou, what is it?” Comes his gentle, but in-a-rush voice.

Malika bites her lip. _‘Just spit it out just spit it out just spit it out!’_ She twiddles her thumbs, and asks, “Why did you and… _mother_ split?”

All is quiet in the room for a moment, until Mr. Kirschtein lets out a noise of disapproval. “Mireille, the last you asked about this was _years_ ago; I thought I asked you to stop?”

“Just this one question! I swear—”

“Well it’s not being answered. I need to be somewhere—” The man promptly rises and practically _sprints_ towards his bedroom door, but Malika presses on, “Did you even _want_ to split? I mean, you always seem—”

Suddenly, her father, in all his angular, sharp-eyed glory, turns and with pain and _fury_ etched into his voice and thunderously shouts, “Mireille, I said _NO!!_ ”

Shocked to silence, Malika stands frozen by the bed. Shit, shit, _shit_ , she didn’t mean for this to go in this direction and now her father whom she’s never known until very recently is mad at her and she’s messed everything up and now he’ll never speak of this again—

As quickly as his rage reared its ugly head, her father’s face dissolves into a sad one as he looks at her, and he comes back over, pulling her into an apologetic hug, which is gratefully accepted. Malika buries her teary eyes into the sleek fabric of her father’s suit, arms grasped tightly around his waist uncaring if she’s wrinkling something or messing it up. He doesn’t stop her, and instead, she hears him sigh again, much softer and quieter than before, and he murmurs, “I’m—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell, but…”

Another sigh.

“You know this… this subject is—painful to talk about, oui?”

Malika nods into her father’s chest. He smells clean and fresh, with a hint of that expensive aftershave she saw on his bathroom shelves. “ _Why_ is it painful, though?” Malika croaks. “At least tell me what happened. I want that much.”

A hand comes to cradle the back of her head, weaving into her tawny blond locks. Yet one more of those melancholy sighs, and her father mutters, “... Very well.”

They break apart, and Malika scoots herself back onto her father’s bed, wiping at her runny nose in gruff embarrassment. In quiet protest, Mr. Kirschtein whips out a handkerchief from his breast pocket with a flick of the wrist, and presses it into her hands with a stern look, waiting for her to properly wipe her nose before he kneels before her on the carpet and goes on.

With a deep inhale and a glance at the clock, he tells her, “We—we didn’t split because of any—well, I mean, we were never _married_ so it was never a—a _divorce_ —but—”

He clears his throat, obviously struggling to compose his thoughts.

“Your m—your mother and I—”

He definitely struggled on mother, and now she knew why.

“—got along very well—or we—not in the beginning, actually. Or in the end—but… we still… had a connection, yes?”

With the amount he’s muttering and beating around the bush, Malika suddenly starts to feel guilty for pushing him to do this. Yes, she knows who he’s talking about when he says “mother”, whose identity he is protecting. But seeing him like this—she’d only known him for five days and yet she already knows he is normally a very composed man—and to see him on his knees, scraping up some deep, hidden memories just to appease his daughter tugs at her heart. The lump in her throat keeps her from telling him he doesn’t have to continue.

“We just… we just didn’t work out in the end. Our parents—” He briefly glances at the door, “—our colleagues, friends… they didn’t—they didn’t approve of us. And so we—I thought… thought it best that we no longer see each other.”

_Oh._

Malika closes her eyes for a moment.

_Oh._

Quietly, “So… the world thought it best you weren’t together?”

“I—yes.”

_Oh. Oh._

Opening her eyes again, the same eyes of her father, she looks at him, kneeling on the ground before her and massaging little, anxious circles into her smaller hands with his own. “But do you still love hi—her?”

Something unidentifiable ripples across her father’s face, but it is quickly subdued before she can even begin to ponder what mixture of emotions it was.

“... I… I don’t think that does much good now—”

He’s avoiding the question, which already gives her the answer she wants, but she needs to hear him say it, to make him realize it himself. She pushes, firmly, “Do you?”

His eyes flick up to her face, and suddenly, she sees how _tired_ he is in his middle age, and she sees how scared he is of his own frantic, delicate heart. And yet, despite all this, he quietly, shakily whispers:

“Yes. I—I do.”

**August 30, 1962, Saturday, 3:43 PM**

Having been at the house for about five days, Mireille had nearly grown used to it. She’d been introduced to her scholar of an uncle and warrior of an aunt already, and while she still wasn’t quite as used to the pants or the lack of a flute in the house, she found herself enjoying it all the same.

Aunt Mikasa and Uncle Armin’s german shepherd, Titan, was bounds of energy and fun according to Malika, but for Mireille, he'd only been shy and avoidant. When Armin brushed it off with a laugh and a, “It's like he doesn't recognize you!”, Mireille had faked a chuckle as best she could. She knew Mikasa was a little suspicious of her, so she was thankful for the hike she and her baba were currently embarked on, for it gave her an excuse to get away from Mikasa’s hawk-like stare.

However, things get difficult when you’re trying to use the father-daughter time as an opening to try and pry into your baba’s heart while on the hike but he keeps placing frogs and lizards on your head like the child he is.

Shrieking at the most recent slimy little jumper descending from her hair, Mireille stumbled back against a tree trunk as her baba tilted back his head and bellowed out his signature, body-racking cackle.

“Oh, yavrum, you’d think spending eight weeks in the middle of the woods would make you _more_ attuned to the outdoors; not _less!_ ” He chortled. “You've never been this _squeamish_ before!”

Mireille knew it was terribly unlike her sister, but she couldn’t help it! The only animals she was used to seeing on a daily basis were pigeons, city birds, cats, dogs, and horses!

“Baba, _please_! I’ve been trying to ask you something!” Mireille pouted, curling her hands into fists at her sides. The frog speedily leapt away from the loud, lumbering giants.

Her baba wipped at his eyes with one hand and held his stomach with the other as his laughter died down. “Alright, alright, I’m sorry. What was it?”

Mireille pointedly brushed at the top of her hair as she trudged back up the forest floor towards her baba. “I was trying to ask—” She came up beside him. “Where did you go on your first date?”

Abruptly, Mr. Jaeger’s easy smile and gentle chuckles cease, and his eyebrows furrow. “What? Why’re you thinking about that?”

Mireille plays innocent. “Oh, no reason! Just wondering…”

She watches as her baba casts his gaze up to the sky for a moment, as if beckoning some higher power for strength. “Yavrum, if I hear you’re sneaking out to meet someone—"

“It’s _not_ that, baba!”

His parental look of concern turns back to a familiar, toothy grin. “You sure, cus you sound awful—”

“Oh my god, _stop!_ ”

Again, booming, jolly laughter, and they continue on for a few more paces until they lapse into silence, and Mireille realizes he’d diverted her attention. She reasks the question, and he trips over a root in the ground, but catches himself just as quick.

“Damn.” Her baba mutters, and she crosses her arms. “You’re really serious about this?”

She simply fixates him with a firm look.

“Okay, okay,” He throws his hands up, and plops down on a nearby rock. Mireille moves to do the same, sitting on a smaller boulder across the path and shrugging off her backpack so she can dig out her water canteen. Finding it, she takes a swig. The California sun sure is something.

“So this definitely isn’t because you’re interested in anybody?” Comes her baba’s voice, paternally concerned and protective already.

“ _No_ , baba.”

He pauses, just in case she were to follow up with a “just kidding!”, but she doesn’t, so with a great sigh, he gets comfortable on the rock, brushing loose, brown strands of hair off his sweaty forehead.

“My first date…” He mutters, hand moving to swipe a damp rag from his pocket and drag it across his face and neck. “You know I hate thinking about this, evet?”

“I know, I know,” Mireille says. “But you don’t even need tell me about that. Just the date—where’d you go?”

Hesitant green eyes briefly glance up at her, then go back down to where tanned hands are twisting the damp rag. “... Uh… you see, we met just before the war—”

Mireille’s mind flashes to the picture of he and her father together, with “August, 1945, celebrating end of WWII” scrawled at the bottom of the image, of their intertwined hands and young, grinning faces.

“—and we didn’t start out too—too great. But there was somethin’ there…” He trails off, whispering “somethin’ there” to himself a second time. His hands let go of the rag and unravel it, only to start strangling the poor thing again.

“A—anyway, then the draft went up and we had to go in and everything, you know all that—”

Mireille nodded, crossing her legs on the rock and listening eagerly. Her baba stutters out, “So we never saw each other throughout that whole war. Not til ‘45…”

His gaze goes hazy as he trails off once more, mind obviously in a different place, a different time.

_‘They must’ve had a relationship before the war, because who holds hands with a stranger at a party?’ Malika had reasoned._

So what they’d had before the war obviously has to have been a bit more than “somethin’ there”. Determined to get her baba out of whatever headspace he was in now, Mireille called, “And your date?”

This effectively brought him back to earth, as he shook his head and cleared his throat. “Ah, evet, that. It—the first—our first _actual_ date was actually at a—well, it wasn’t very “conventional”, put it that way.”

Mireille only blinked and smiled innocently, urging him to go on, much to his evident dismay. He raked a hand through his hair and sighed. “What I mean is, we started out at a ga—at a bar, just getting some drinks and—and dancin’ a bit, evet? Then—”

“What drinks did you have?”

He pauses for a moment, staring at her as if begging her to stop asking about this, but then grumbles, “H—she got a—a Jack Rose… I got a Bijou.”

Mireille marvels at such an exact memory, and takes note. Her baba gives another pained look, then he continues. “Then I—well I wanted to—to show hi—her some Turkish food. Stuff we’re used to, yeah?”

He grinned at her, but it was a little shaky, obviously from the weight this had on him. Still, she returned his smile in encouragement. She’d caught his stumble on the word “her”, and if not for the meaning and significance behind that, she wouldn’t have noticed it at all.

“And there weren’t many—if _any_ —places that served Turkish food, so I took her home—to _my_ home at the time, and I made us dinner.” With that, he nodded, mostly to himself, satisfied in having gotten that out. “And that was my first date, yavrum. Now, I don’t want you asking any more questions about this, evet?”

Mireille hesitated, for she had one last one on her mind, but she didn’t want to risk making her baba mad. Slowly, she asked, “Do you still love… her? Baba?”

At that, he nearly visibly _flinched_ as if slapped by some invisible hand, and scowled. “Malika, I—what such—how—”

He got to his feet and came over to her, hands thrown to the air. “What’s gotten into you? Why’re you asking these things? We’re no longer together and we haven’t been for fourteen years, so quit poking around—”

Mireille watched as her baba began trudging down the hiking trail, belting frustrated excuses as he went, but she hopped to her feet and called out, “Baba, do you ever wish you were still together? At least answer me that!”

 _‘I’m smart enough to read subtext.’_ She thought, watching the form of her baba slow to a stop under the dark shadow of trees. His shoulders slumped with a sigh, and though the short distance did a number on his projection, he muttered, “What’s done is done, Malika.”

His voice wasn’t loud and boisterous as it usually was, but sorrowful and sullen. It was a stark contrast to the ball of sunshine and energy Mireille had grown to know in the last five days.  “I’m not going to spend the rest of my life moping over someone who—who—”

His voice cracked, and suddenly he was unable to finish that sentence. Mireille quietly came up behind him, and weaseled her way into his arms, trying to offer some sort of comfort. His warm, strong arms enveloped her, and she found she didn’t need to force it out of him, for she had all the answer she needed, and she was showing him that it was okay. And despite his old feelings being yanked out into the spotlight, he didn’t need to say them out loud yet.

Her baba, loud and fun and lively, had forced his heart to go silent, smothered and snuffed out like a pillow had been shoved over it. But it was now starting to talk again, and that's what Mireille wanted.

_‘I'm not going to spend the rest of my life moping over someone the world says can't be with me.’_

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments! This is only about halfway done, but I'd like to continue and finish it. Tell me what you think, in as many or as little words as you like!


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